The fighting game renaissance that began with Capcom's Street Fighter IV sees its latest high-profile entry: Tecmo Koei's Dead or Alive 5. The $59.99 polygonal fighter, available on both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, brings the series trademark rock-paper-scissors style combat to a home console for the first time since 2005's Dead or Alive 4 (it's also the first DOA to appear on the PS3). Featuring intricate mechanics, several beautiful interactive environments, and characters from Sega's Virtua Fighter series, Dead or Alive is a fun fighter, but it lacks the extra depths found in the likes of Namco Bandai's Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

Dead or Alive 5's action is fast and accessible, but the game's rock-paper-scissor's gameplay in which strikes beat throws, throws beat holds (counterattacks), and holds beat strikes, favors more cerebral players. Sure, you can attempt to button mash your way through a match, but you'll be quickly squashed—especially online where completion is high (if the lag doesn't ruin the experience). Noob warning: If you play the CPU on one of the higher difficulty settings, be prepared to see nearly all of your blows countered—it's quite frustrating. Thankfully, there's a practice mode where you can work on technique mastery.

There are numerous fighting game modes, but one that needs mention is story mode. The story is a confusing cheesefest that has awful voice acting. That said, it's useful for unlocking the Virtua Fighter characters. And on the topic of voice acting, the characters' pre-fight dialogue is filled with repetitive throwaway lines that you'll want to skip as soon as you've heard them once.

Like Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Dead or Alive 5 lets you take a pair of fighters into combat. Tag action is fast, and it's remarkably easy to do team attacks, which plays more to casual players. As such, DOA is a bit of a hybrid fighter that has one foot in the hardcore and more casual realms (although nowhere near as watered-down as Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3). Unlike Tekken Tag Tournament 2, this game allows you to continue fighting after one character falls. Still, you should utilize wise character management by swapping out heavily-damaged characters to heal (or master the improved sidestep move).

Masterful EnvironmentsBattles take place in varied locations ranging from a circus arena to a war-torn landscape. The environments are interactive, too. Not only do random items in the environments break—everything from barrels to fences—but you can slam people into Danger Zones that electrify or explode, causing the victim big damage.

You can also knock foes over ledges, which trigger cinematic quick time events. The winner of the QTE gets a temporary damage boost for unleashing extra fury. Wise fighters will use Power Blows (a super attack that you can use to blow opponents into a selected direction) to really lay on the hurt by sending foes into Danger Zones. This gives Dead or Alive 5 an action movie vibe more so than games like Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown (which approaches sim designation), and it works well.

Not Quite the ChampTekken Tag Tournament 2 remains the Editor's Choice among 3D fighters for its incredibly deep gameplay and excellent all-around package, but Dead or Alive 5 is no slouch. It's more green-friendly than Namco Bandai's offering, but that's not necessarily a knock (unless you're the type to spend every waking moment in the digital dojo). That said, if you bother to learn the rock-paper-scissors mechanics, you can have some rather strategic matches as you knock opponents around the crazy environments.

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About the Author

For more than a decade, Jeffrey L. Wilson has penned gadget- and video game-related nerd-copy for a variety of publications, including 1UP, 2D-X, The Cask, Laptop, LifeStyler, Parenting, Sync, Wise Bread, and WWE. He now brings his knowledge and skillset to PCMag as Senior Analyst.
When he isn't staring at a monitor (or two) and churning out web... See Full Bio

Dead or Alive 5 (for Xbox 360)

Dead or Alive 5 (for Xbox 360)

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